NECC Podcast Interview

While I was at NECC, Apple had a group there doing podcasts with Apple Distinguished Educators … kinda cool seeing my name in the new podcast directory in iTunes! At any rate, here is the link directly to the entry. It was a lot of fun talking with Barnaby Wasson the other day about all sorts of stuff. We decided not to do our little talk back at the hotel and walked down the street to a little spot to have some lunch and talk. I imagine it was a funny sight to see us sitting in the corner with the audio guys (great guys by the way … Kevin and Ross were tops) hanging boom mics at us … I love the background noises — the coffee grinders, people talking, and the music make it so much more authentic. At any rate, if you’re interested take a listen. The pictures below let you in on a little secret … there was actually a crew there.


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Podcasting Event at NECC

I went to the podcasting event at NECC last night. I was blown away by the number of people that showed up — they had to do a second session to get most of them in. Really sort of makes you think there is somthing big to this podcasting thing … at any rate, I had a chance to talk with the speaker, Barnaby Wasson afterwards and I captured it as, you guessed it, a podcast. Barnaby talked about what podcasting is and some interesting and novel uses for it. I am still just blown away by how packed the room was. Apple demonstrated, in a very complete way, how podcasting works in iTunes 4.9 … what was even more impressive was how it works with the iPod — in a word, wow! The bookmarks, with the ability to change and annotate images is just amazing. I downloaded the tool that lets you do that (still in beta), but it a terminal app at the moment. All in all, well done Apple! My little iTunes problems aside, this is an amazing point upgrade.

The other thing that really impresses me about the whole iPod/iTunes space is the team that Apple has pushing it. They really believe they have a device that can change what we do in and out of the classroom. Its always great to see smart people with passion talking about what they are doing. Nice job! Also, Barnaby is a great speaker and I can see why he is an Apple Distinguished Educator. At any rate, listen to the Podcast … sorry its a little big … I’m in a hurry to get it out there.

Off to Philly: NECC Bound

I’ll be leaving for my old stomping grounds, Philadelphia, PA tomorrow morning for the NECC conference. I’m sure I’ll be dropping some posts in here over the course of the next few days … if they have good wifi. You know, that makes all the difference at a conference these days — solid wifi gives us all a chance to open the confernce up to so many others … let alone the huge amount of word of mouth goodness they get via all the bloggers in the seats. At any rate, if you’re there, look for me … and if you decide to go to the podcasting event, really look for me! See you in Philly!